My home is filled with Apple gear, but watching Jonathan Ive this September introducing the iPhone 5 made me feel like I was just not ready for that kind of responsibility.
So I decided to return to my first love Sony and turn off my parental instinct by choosing a phone that could take a hit.
The Sony Xperia Go.
The user manual clearly states it can withstand submersion, but not to be taken in the ocean, swimming pool or diving below the feared depth of one metre.
I have ignored these recommendations and have been doing so for two months of weekends at the beach with my kids and have yet to have any problems. The phone lacks a physical camera button, I have to hit record before dipping back under the water,the phones greatest flaw.
But the video it returns is fine, as long as you don't watch it on the phone itself. It's 480x320 pixels screen is supported by Sony's Bravia Engine and in low light watching movies is okay but in the day you are struck by the presences of tiny rows of capacitive dots. This may have something to do with the wet finger tracking feature which works well in the ocean.
Throwing 720 video to my Playstation via the media server feature was a jerky experience, but copying across worked fine. Photos looked crisp on my 1080 TV, low light photos are no where near as good as the iPhone.
Needless to say the 480x320 screen is not the best for reading text for any amount of time.
Websites are painful/passable, painable?
Downloading apps is easy and gaming is fine plus the fact it's not an Apple product means my kids never drain the battery and have largely ignored it.
The phone comes with some standard headphones with remote and microphone. They sound okay, as does the external speaker, when not wet.
The Gmail app is better then the mail app on iPhone, widgets are time savers and having a notification light is a plus. The Walkman widget/app is easy and it returns good sound on good headphones.
In Australia it's free on a 24 month $30 plan. I can only assume it would be equally as cheap where you are and there in lies it's biggest feature, it's cheap.
Your never going to care about keeping it safe, scratching it or diving deeper then one metre to grab video of fish circling your snorkelling kids. Swinging it madly with the lanyard from my finger and shooting it at the couch or blasting music in the shower is something i would never do with an iPhone.
So if your thinking of getting one and you don't mind the standard resolution screen and want to never dry your hands, use it on a dusty work site or soak it in gym sweat then you should.
The overall experience is fun and freedom.
The Breakdown
-
Design
7
-
Display
5
-
Camera(s)
7
-
Reception / call quality
8
-
Performance
7
-
Software
5
-
Battery life
9
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Ecosystem
7
